Observation/Reflection #4 - What Was the Question?
This week, try to pay attention to how your teacher asks questions and facilitates discussion in his or her classes. What types of questions does your CT ask? Are most of the questions asking students to relay facts or textbook definitions (recall) or to apply a concept to a new situation or compare it to another concept (application or analysis). Does your teacher ever encourage his or her students to be critical or skeptical? If so, when and how? Does your CT ever ask students to provide evidence to support a claim or explain their thinking? Does your teacher facilitate classroom discussion so that students are expressing scientific ideas to other students? Finally, does your CT vary the type of questions he or she asks depending on the level of the class, or the perceived ability of the student? Remember to reflect on what types of classroom discourse you want to foster in your classroom, how you will go about doing this, and why.
Observation:
Mr. A's advanced biology class conducted the first part of a lab which will eventually show how plasmids (segments of DNA) can enter a live bacteria cell in a process called transformation. The lab will use a plasmid which includes the gene for fluorescnce from a different organism and place it into an e. coli bacteria culture and then allow the culture to grow. In a few days the students will observe their cultures, which includes a control group, and note their observations.
Mr. A had already reviewed the topic and the students were familiar with the information and concepts. Mr. A informed the class that they were replicating an experiment that had already been done. He asked them before the lab what was the main reason that scientists actually duplicate experiments if it had already been done. Many hands were raised, and the selected student answered that a major premise for accepting data from an experiment to support the current hypothesis was independent replication of that data in subsequent experiments by others.
Mr A. handed out the lab procedures and data collection sheets to all and asked them to form their own groups of 4-6 students and get to work, which they did. He asked them to not get ahead of him, as he was the timkeeper and controlled when each step would begin. As each group was performing a particular step, Mr A would circulate the class and stop at each group and ask a question or two. eg: why are we cooling our cultures now? Why heating them at this point? What do you think is happening now? Why are you recording such and such information. This questioning went on throughout the lab, until every group completed the lab.
Reflection
Upon listening to the answers that the students were giving to the various questions posed to them by the teacher during the lab, I discovered that Mr. A was simply reinforcing the subject content that was covered during previous class by questioning all the students in small groups. He was constantly trying to get the students to activate that freshly learned information. He was also doing some formative assessment or what Gallagher calls embedded assessment. He was searching for evidence that the students were transfering their textbook knowledge into the lab experience. He was seeing if the students could apply the concepts they learned in class into the part of their instruction where they designed and conducted experiments. It was all part of being scientists, not just rote memorization of information. He was trying to impress upon the students that the scientific process of investigation was not some disjointed series of activities. He rarely gave answers to his probing questions, instead asked other students to help out when a lab partner was stumped and then asking that helper what was the answer based upon. The class was extremely motivated and were all excited to try to duplicate the experiment. I am sure if any of the students were asked to explain transformation in a bacteria, they could do so easily.
Observation/Reflection #4 - What Was the Question?
This week, try to pay attention to how your teacher asks questions and facilitates discussion in his or her classes. What types of questions does your CT ask? Are most of the questions asking students to relay facts or textbook definitions (recall) or to apply a concept to a new situation or compare it to another concept (application or analysis). Does your teacher ever encourage his or her students to be critical or skeptical? If so, when and how? Does your CT ever ask students to provide evidence to support a claim or explain their thinking? Does your teacher facilitate classroom discussion so that students are expressing scientific ideas to other students? Finally, does your CT vary the type of questions he or she asks depending on the level of the class, or the perceived ability of the student? Remember to reflect on what types of classroom discourse you want to foster in your classroom, how you will go about doing this, and why.Observation:
Mr. A's advanced biology class conducted the first part of a lab which will eventually show how plasmids (segments of DNA) can enter a live bacteria cell in a process called transformation. The lab will use a plasmid which includes the gene for fluorescnce from a different organism and place it into an e. coli bacteria culture and then allow the culture to grow. In a few days the students will observe their cultures, which includes a control group, and note their observations.Mr. A had already reviewed the topic and the students were familiar with the information and concepts. Mr. A informed the class that they were replicating an experiment that had already been done. He asked them before the lab what was the main reason that scientists actually duplicate experiments if it had already been done. Many hands were raised, and the selected student answered that a major premise for accepting data from an experiment to support the current hypothesis was independent replication of that data in subsequent experiments by others.
Mr A. handed out the lab procedures and data collection sheets to all and asked them to form their own groups of 4-6 students and get to work, which they did. He asked them to not get ahead of him, as he was the timkeeper and controlled when each step would begin. As each group was performing a particular step, Mr A would circulate the class and stop at each group and ask a question or two. eg: why are we cooling our cultures now? Why heating them at this point? What do you think is happening now? Why are you recording such and such information. This questioning went on throughout the lab, until every group completed the lab.
Reflection
Upon listening to the answers that the students were giving to the various questions posed to them by the teacher during the lab, I discovered that Mr. A was simply reinforcing the subject content that was covered during previous class by questioning all the students in small groups. He was constantly trying to get the students to activate that freshly learned information. He was also doing some formative assessment or what Gallagher calls embedded assessment. He was searching for evidence that the students were transfering their textbook knowledge into the lab experience. He was seeing if the students could apply the concepts they learned in class into the part of their instruction where they designed and conducted experiments. It was all part of being scientists, not just rote memorization of information. He was trying to impress upon the students that the scientific process of investigation was not some disjointed series of activities. He rarely gave answers to his probing questions, instead asked other students to help out when a lab partner was stumped and then asking that helper what was the answer based upon. The class was extremely motivated and were all excited to try to duplicate the experiment. I am sure if any of the students were asked to explain transformation in a bacteria, they could do so easily.